Two years ago, I drew up a home page for a new project, and called it New Work City. The new name and new effort signified a concerted and determined effort to build a dedicated coworking space in Manhattan.

The response was overwhelming, and two years later that project has flourished into an thriving community of incredible people from all walks of life. We found a space to call home, and used that as our headquarters for coworking, parties, discussions, workshops, fund raisers, launch events, BarCamp planning committess and more Meetup groups than we can count.

Hundreds of people from all around the world have landed at NWC to work and collaborate. Thousands have participated in our events and benefited from what our community has produced as a whole.

We are now at a crossroads. NWC is packed almost daily and has sorely outgrown our current space, and the community has swelled to the point that we are ready to do far more together than we can possibly do in our current iteration. It’s also become clear that our days in our current space are numbered; consequently it’s becoming increasingly important that we secure a new home sooner rather than later.

Join us Thursday, April 1 at 7pm to discuss where we go from here, both literally and figuratively.

RSVP & Details on Meetup –>

New Work City exists and thrives because you want it to, and where we go will be wholly shaped by where you want it to go, just as it has always been.

There are so many great things for us to do together. Let’s get to it!

Best,
Mayor Tony

“Go Epic, or Go Home.”

When it comes to the shortage of women being represented in technology, entrepreneurship, conferences, and coworking spaces, one thing there is no shortage of is examples:

At NWC, we’ve got a decent representation of female membership, but it’s honestly not nearly what we’d consider balanced.

So what can we do about it? Well, part of why NWC is here is to make it easier for people to lead independent lives and find what they need to find. So, for our potential female coworkers out there, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make it even easier, and lower the barriers even more.

I want to offer up a day at NWC where women are encouraged to come cowork, free of charge, and the boys are only welcome if they bring a lady coworker with them.

Now, this would mean that regular paying members might not be able to use NWC on a day when they otherwise would have. This is something of an issue.

I believe, however, that it’s in everyone’s interests that we develop a more well-rounded community that encourages more female entrepreneurship and participation in the community. Also, since we also all have pretty flexible schedules, I figure with sufficient advance notice people can plan around a day when NWC will be unavailable.

So screw it… let’s do this.

Two weeks from now is Friday, March 5th. So says the Mayor, on March 5th, NWC is open and free to female coworkers and male coworkers bringing a female coworker with them. If you’re a guy and can’t find a lady friend who needs to get her cowork on, we’ll have a limited number of spots you can reserve ahead of time.

Update: Let’s call the date for this event TBD and give ourselves some time to figure out how to do this right. Check this wiki page for a current draft of the structure: http://nwc.wikidot.com/lowering-barriers-for-aspiring-female-independents

We’ll pause at lunch time (12:30) to have a discussion about what people are doing (and what more people could be doing) to lower barriers to aspiring female geeks, entrepreneurs, and coworkers everywhere.

I’m going to discuss this with more members to make sure this works OK enough for everyone, and then post up an RSVP next week.

Update 1:
Somebody very politely pointed out that “Ladies Day” is probably not the best name for this. I wholeheartedly agree. What should we call this thing?

Update 2:
Part of the challenge here is making it easier for more women to participate, while not singling out or segregating women from men. So the event should include a healthy balance of boys and girls.

My my, what a year it’s been! Join us Friday, October 23^rd to celebrate NWC’s first year of coworking and to explore what’s in store for the future.

One year of coworking and more

It’s been a busy 12 months, both inside and outside of NWC:

We’ve made a lot of good friends. To the tune of  77 members throughout the year, 43 active members as of today, and dozens of visitors passing through from all corners of the world.

We helped make a lot of good things happen. On top of the great projects and products NWC members have developed over the course of the last year, some of which are highlighted below, we’ve also been home to the planning of BarCampNYC4, LaidOffCampNY, FashionCamp, OneWebDay, CultivateNY, the Breakout Festival, BigAppsDevCamp, Swagapalooza, and more. Our latest experiment is in CoStructure, where we work together to bring more sanity to our overworked lives.

We hosted a lot of good events. 22, to be exact, in our main Coworking NYC Meetup Group, which has blossomed to over 550 members. On top of that, we kicked off the Runway Project and helped hundreds of newfound independents get started on working for themselves over the course of 13 volunteer-led brainstorming and educational events. We’ve also been home to several other Meetups, including the Open Government Meetup, the Math Club Meetup, the Social Causes/Social Media Meetup, Groovy Grails Meetup and more. We also organized two fantastic TEDxNWC events, where some of NYC’s greatest minds got together to discuss creating a better future.

We had a lot of good times. Between Coworking After Hours, TechDrinks, some impromptu bouts of Beatles Rock Band, lunch outings and more, we’ve all had plenty of good times in between getting things done.

That’s a whole lot of good.

As we go, New Work City is going to continue to grow and evolve. As the past year’s activities have made clear, NWC is far more than just a place to work– it’s a growing, thriving community of incredible people, and we as a collective group are going to work together to find new ways to help each other.

Member Launch Party

NWC’s members have been hard at work, and on 10/23 we’ll showcase their awesome stuff:

Perpetually
Darrell Silver presents TechCrunch50 finalist Perpetually.com, which lets you archive sites and go back in time to see how they’ve evolved over time. It’s like the Wayback Machine on steroids on a healthy diet and exercise!

Bundl.it
If you’ve ever wanted to send a batch of links in Twitter or elsewhere, but found that sending all those links was too onerous, you can use Sara Chipps’ Bundl.it to create a really simple package of links, and get a short URL to direct people to a simple and elegant list of those links.

The Circuit
Mark Burstiner, the NYC tech scene’s de facto event video streamer, steps in front of the camera for a show about the awesomest things happening on the web.

RedRover
Kevin Prentiss’s RedRover helps new college students connect to each other through shared interests—sort of like what those cheesy ice breakers were supposed to do, but this actually works, is online, and is not cheesy.

OpenHallway
Gib Reimschussel offers a service that allows you to conduct usability tests virtually online– and lets you record videos of the users’ reactions and experiences. A simple, affordable option for companies that need to conduct lightweight usability testing.

KeenKong
Frederic Guarino will share with us a new service that lets you manage your Twitter conversations easily and on a large scale, as well as see in-depth statistics about the activity of people talking to and about you.

Maybe A Secret New Announcement From Tony
Which is a secret, but everyone who attends will be able to participate!

Event Details

Location:
New Work City
200 Varick St, Room 507B
New York, NY 10014 (map)

Subway:
1 to Houston St.
ACE BDFV to W. 4th St.

Schedule:
This is a rough outline of the evening’s activities and is subject to change. Needless to say, make sure you actually get there by 9.
08:00pm – Event start, Beatles Rock Band
09:00pm – Drinks, snacks, & social
10:00pm – Talks from Tony and members
10:30pm – More socializing
Late night – Musical entertainment

Does this sound as fun to you as it does to me? I think it does! So get your RSVP on!

RSVP on Meetup

or

RSVP on Facebook

See you there!

Cheers,
Mayor Tony

BarCampNYC4 was amazing, and so many great ideas were shared and conversations had.

NWC members were there in full effect:

• Mark Burstiner streamed and recorded all the talks in one of the rooms, all of which are now online in full here: http://livestream.com/newworkcity
• Whitney Hess gave an awesome talk on DIY UX 
• Sanford spoke with Liz Pullen about Whuffie versus Social Capital
• Sarah Cooley did a Social Media Q&A to a packed room
• I spoke about our latest idea to transition Runway Project into a more structured NWCU community school for independent learning. 
• Peter Chislett, Sarah Cooley, and Frederic Guarino were instrumental in helping organize and manage the event with myself and others.

So many great conversations were started, and few were finished.

To that end, join us at 6:30 on June 16th to continue the conversations and pick up where we left off!

Details & RSVP:
http://www.meetup.com/coworking-nyc/calendar/10568404/

Add a comment below about what BarCamp topic you’d like to discuss further!

It’s time for us New Workers to gather again! We did this last month and had each person briefly introduce themselves and what they’re working on. 

The idea is for everyone to be up on what everyone else is up to, and to see how we might be able to help each other.

We’re meeting today at NWC at 5:30. While the event is focused on members of NWC, friends of NWC are welcome too.

After, we’ll be heading to Fat Cat for some ping pong, billiards, chess, scrabble, shuffleboard, and/or some live music!

Depending on interest, we may move to another night. Comment below if you’d like to join and we’ll keep you posted!

Our first community meeting was awesome; we got to all know each other a little better, give an update on how New Work City is doing, and get feedback on things moving forward.

Here are some highlights, compliments of Raines Cohen, coworking coach (with my notes in bold):

• watching @nwc community meeting live via #uStreamhttp://tinyurl.com/62otzs
• @tonybgoode sez he is thankful that enough people signed up for @nwc#coworking that he doesn’t have to go broke for the holidays
• @nwc #coworking is up to 18 members, having #Xmas party Thurs 12/18. Congrats on rapid growth rate! L:New York City, NY (corrected the date to 12/18 -Tony)
• @nwc #coworking moved its blog from #tumblr to #WordPress (feature: categories!). Also has lockers, library, calendar; #eggnog soon. (eggnog will be at Christmas party -Tony)
  
• @nwc #coworking planning #NoiseReduction sound-dampening technology so conference calls don’t sound like bathroom stall.
• @nwc #coworking is looking for a #contractor, someone good with a #sledgehammer
• @nwc sez “whenever we advertise #coworking for free, tons of people show up”
• @nwc planning a “get your act together” Saturday session for mutually supportive #coworking plate-clearing, inbox emptying, and disgorging stuff
• @nwc closes #ustream live #coworking community meeting: “Let’s get the hell out of here and have a great Thanksgiving” 

Have you been aching to get your cowork on, but you’re stuck doing something else during business hours?

Are you working on a side project during your off hours, or when the boss isn’t looking?

Or are you just the type of person who likes to hack for 15 hours straight?

Indulge in your workaholism at this free evening coworking jaunt. Bring a laptop and some work to do!

New Work City opens at 9am, so you can join us during the daytime for our standard drop-in rate ($25), or you can come at 5:00pm and work through the evening for free.

Our host, Whitney Hess, has informed us that this event can and will go rather late into the night!

RSVP here!

Thanks Whitney!

New Work City was proud to host the first meeting of people who want to help organize BarCampNYC4, New York’s latest entry into the world’s awesomest unconference.

Sixteen people from various backgrounds and NYC organizations came together to meld minds and take the first big steps: determining preferred dates, venues, and sponsors, and determining who will talk to whom to follow up.

We also streamed it live on our UStream account, which we’ll try to use for more events in the future as well. I was happy to see that, after we ironed out some technical difficulties, the folks watching online were able to see and hear the meeting pretty clearly, and even contribute to the meeting.

It was an amazing meeting of some of NYC’s best minds, and one thing that struck me more than anything else was the sheer resiliency of both BarCamp and our community. Observing how the meeting transpired, I had no fear of BarCamp jumping the shark, and after four events with continuously growing success and interest that’s impressive.

Viva la BarCamp! Check out our notes from the meeting here.

Our next meeting is likely to be Monday, December 1st at 7pm at New Work City, if you’re interested in helping out, come join us!

We’ve got a special evening lined up for you this Saturday! Join fellow New Workers along with some of the leaders of the global coworking movement as we celebrate the opening of New Work City!

Itinerary

Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll be doing:

8:00pm – Pre-party warmup discussions: Coworking coaching session with Raines Cohen, Coworking Coach!

9:00pm – Toast and party kickoff

10:30 – 11pm – Move to the Four Points Sheraton, around the corner

Here’s the info:

Address & Directions

Address:
200 Varick St, Room 507B
New York, NY 10014 (Map)

Tell security you’re there for Rom 507B, Element N. This is the company hosting us.

Directions:
Take the 1 to Houston Street.
Take the ACEBDFV to W. 4th Street.

RSVP

RSVP on Facebook

RSVP on Gary’s Guide

RSVP on Meetup

Contact

If you have any trouble or any questions, contact Tony at tony [at] nwcny [dot] com or 631-513-1680.

Sponsor

A very extra-special thanks goes out to ITAC, who is graciously sponsoring our event! ITAC is a fully government-funded nonprofit whose central purpose is to foster small business growth in the New York metro area. Needless to say, we love them! At the event, we’ll briefly review one of ITAC’s friends, the Small Business Innovation Research program, which is a government initiative to connect their research and development efforts with those of small businesses.

See you there!

The Ikea order is in! The furniture is on the way!

Join us this Tuesday afternoon at 5:00 to help us assemble the desks and chairs and help make New Work City a whole lot cozier.

Comment below to let us know if you’re coming! We’ll update with an exact time once we hear back from Ikea.

Cheers! It’s time to build a coworking space!